a conversation about color

In case you are not aware, I grew up in Arizona. My desert upbringing familiarized me with various shapes and sizes of cacti, the different textures of each of the mountain ranges that completely encircled my hometown, and, as I often bemoaned, the color brown. Every flight I took, primarily in those angst-filled preteen years, I would press my nose up against the window and lament about my life in this monochrome dirt pit. Oh, the naivety of youth. To be clear – my opinion of my home state blossomed into a full-on love affair sometime around college, but that magical tale can be shared another time.

If Arizona is brown, then Bangkok is grey. And just as Arizona has a spectrum of hues if you pay attention, Bangkok has these patches of color so intense they practically punch you in the face. Get outside the city, and you’re enveloped in green. I still chuckle at the thought of 13 year old Megan going through my current camera roll. I remember longing for green; aching. Now I literally get lost in it.

My last two trips into the green reminded me that I am still a desert baby – this whole jungle thing is a totally different animal. First, in Kaeng Krachan, I lost the case full of my camera memory cards. I have one card left, but alas, you’ll have to go yourself if you want to see all the gibbons and dusky langurs and leopard (on camera trap) that I photographed. When I took my roommate Emily to Khao Yai, she praised my tour guide talents…until I got us lost in the jungle for three hours, backtracking and pacing and claiming that “yes, I definitely remember that tree!”

Would it be cliché to say something now about how the grass is always greener…?